Topix Australia Forum Invasion
The Topix Australia Forum Invasion was a dark period in Topix history that began in the middle summer of 2013 and lasted all the way to December of the same year. Beginning as a flame war between a coalition of contributors against Rexby, and cumulating in the Topix Australia Forum invading the Topix Dinosaur Forum. Origins From mid 2012 to late 2013, during the TDF's abandonment following the Topix Cold War, trolls such as Oasegenggam ran rampant across the forum. Most contributors had fled to Imperial Palace, the only one that had remained a frequent poster on the TDF was Tyranna2, who had begun a long attrition war against the trolls. Following the departure of the moderate trolls Altanative Whatever, Fegelein and Oasegenggam in December 2012, along with Fegelein and Oasegenggam's subsequent return as contributors, a large number of users from Imperial Palace decided to attempt to revive the TDF in mid-2013, as well as a number of new users who were just discovering the forums. However, the troll Rexby, who had been defeated in the Topix Cold War, returned, and threatened to destroy the contributors efforts to revive the forum. A large coalition of contributors, including Tyranna2, Fegelein, Paleoworld-101, and later Oasegenggam began a flame war with Rexby. Rexby remained stubborn and refused to yield an inch, but then he left for unknown reasons, while the forum seemed to be dragging itself out of the dirt it had been thrown into. Invasion From TAF Around a few weeks before the contributors returned to the TDF, the troll Oasegenggam stated he would stop trolling and begin contributing. While Oase did begin contributing to the forum, unknown to any users on the TDF, he was instead trolling on the Topix Australia Forum. Several weeks later some people who had been annoyed at Oase's trolling on Topix Australia Forum arrived on TDF and began swamping the forum with obscene threads and insulting everyone with an interest in dinosaurs, explaining that they were trying to drive off Oase. Despite this, most of the users from the TAF, namely Normal Aussie and Aussiebob simply insulted all the users on the TDF. Oasegenggam then resumed trolling, and continued behaving as he did prior to his promise to cease. He initially trolled on Imperial Palace, and after being swiftly banned, he returned to Topix and trolled there. This began a large conflict between the TAF and the contributors and trolls of topix, who (in a sense) united to fend of the TAF. Several users from the TDF went onto the TAF and began trolling there, mainly Oasegenggam and Corpolite1, however with most TAF users on the TDF, the threads got little attention. Finally, several users reported the TAF users and a few moderators passed by and banned a couple TAF users, and the rest were later driven off by Corpolite and other users. By the end of August 2013, the trolling stopped, but many obscene threads remained on TDF, occasionally replied to by trolls. "Phoney War" After the TAF invasion, contributors largely ignored Oase and kept off TDF in an attempt to make trolls leave. These efforts were led largely by Paleoworld-101 and Coprolite1, who have tried to negotiate with others to stop responding to Oase and remain on Imperial Palace. This period was nicknamed the "Phoney War", as, despite being technically in conflict, Oase and the contributors rarely fought. (This is a reference to the Phoney War of World War II in 1940, which was a period marked by a lack of military operations between the UK, France and Germany.) On Imperial Palace, most of the discussions about the TDF centered on whether it was worth the fight to keep alive. Users such as Spinosaur King and Enraged Giga argued that the forum should simply be left to die, however, Fegelein and Tyranna2 stated that they should attempt to drive out the trolls. Nonetheless, the contributors continued this tactic of ignoring, all the way up until late Fall of 2013. Second Invasion On the second of September (2013), "Normal Aussie" once again attacked TDF, adding a lot of obscene threads. Oase had already replied to all of them and at the moment it seemed like a spamming war would follow. While most contributors urged other users to remain on Imperial Palace, however a few replied to the Australians threads. While many feared this would lead to another large flame war on the TDF, after a few days Normal Aussie left and the contributors continued the "Phoney War" with Oase. A planned 'reset' of the forum by IP members, involving flooding the TDF with new, on-topic threads was proposed after these events but the idea was discarded. Mid-October By mid-October, all signs pointed towards the possibility of recovery. Whether or not a recovery of TDF would follow was uncertain, but the major trolls like Oase and normalAussie had seemingly retreated from the spotlight, and were posting less often. Oase even declared: "I don't want this forum anymore. You can have it", while apart from the occasional insult, normalAussie was barely active. This is probably due to a combination of periods during which the contributors have decided to ignore the trolls and Coprolite/Tyranna2's constant war of attrition against Oase. Strangely enough, it seemed that the constant war against trolls waged by IP users themselves had been the most damaging to the forum. When users such as Oase have asked questions such as "How big is Torvosaurus?", they have been frequenly met by a barrage of insults from IP users such as Tyranna2 and Fegelein, and the two users, though mostly Fegelein, were critised for this. Soon, however, despite the apparent recovery of the TDF, many contributors who had previously supported the forums revival, such as Balaur and Raptorialhawk, ceased posting. It is unknown why, however this had a devastating effect on the revival, as without a constant stream of on-topic threads and posts, the trollish threads made by Oase and the Australians were constantly responded to, making on-topic discussion on the forum impossible. Final Stages By November, most of the trolls from the Australia forum had left, although other trolls and spammers constantly revived their threads, ensuring the effects of the invasion would scar the forum for quite some time. By December 2013, the last of the Australians left, although most other contributors had already left by then too. Spammers and trolls continue to barrage the forum and revive the Aussies threads to this day. By early 2014, essentially the entire forum had been abandoned, along with any hope of its revival. This event is significant, not so much because of the fact that it caused many users to abandon the forum (as that had occured several times before), but that it was the first time another Topix forum came into major conflict with the TDF (in September 2012, a few users from the Topix Russia Forum made off-topic posts on TDF, although the incident was barely noticed). Many contributors stated it was just an example of how abandoned the TDF was at the time, since even the admins on the TAF did not do anything to stop the Aussies attack. Normal Aussie continues to visit TDF on occassion, but he rarely posts frequently. Category:Topix Wars